


keep on turning the pages

by glitteration



Category: True Detective
Genre: F/M, Gen, alternating povs, hideous amounts of angst and pain, writing experiments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 02:35:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1288069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteration/pseuds/glitteration
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the pas de deux also has symbolic content: as a dance which is deeply physical but also contains an equality of male and female dancers, it has been seen to symbolize the partnership inherent in love</p>
<p>or,</p>
<p>maggie, audrey, and maisie hart and who they are when marty is and isn't looking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	keep on turning the pages

**I. La fille mal gardée**

 

_i._

The girls sit at the table together; Maisie’s got papers fanned out around her in neat piles, stacks looking a little like the ones on his desk at work. Marty’s rueful grin is reflexive and instead of heading over to the recliner, he detours by the table and drops a warm hand on her shoulder and the grin widens when she cuts off mid-sentence, little hand reaching up to pat his.

“Looking good there, sweetheart. Apple don’t fall far even if it’s wearing those little skirts, I guess.”

Audrey’s scoff digs in at the easy contentment of the scene and Marty’s smile hardens, a sneer tucked around the edges of his upturned lips, echoing in the flat images of two little girls and their daddy standing proudly over reflected back on the glass of the window behind him. “ _None_ of the apples.”

Maggie’s pissed again and washing dishes, each clang and clack of glass or metal or porcelain a separate accusation, trying to get his attention and piss him off so he pitches his voice loud enough to carry in there over the racket on ‘none’, because goddamn if Audrey isn’t the same cold, sullen wall when _she’s_ pissed.

There’s a little pause in all the noise from beyond the next wall, then it carries on and Marty could swear it’s even louder now, so message received and he’s in the doghouse another night. That’s all right, though, if it wasn’t this it’d be something else. These days all he’s gotta do to piss off either of them is breathe, no use pulling at the tide like that.

He squeezes Maisie’s shoulder again, leans down to drop a kiss on the soft cornflower-silk of her hair, catching sight of Audrey and that goth crap as he rises and adding in a little pat where he kissed for good measure. “You oughta always keep your hair long like this, all right honey? Looks just beautiful.” This time for sure it gets louder than unholy hell in dishwashing station, so he doesn’t sit down just yet. “Just like your momma’s was when she was your age.”

Sinking into his familiar chair doesn’t feel a whole hell of a lot like winning, but it feels like coming home and that’s all a man can seem to ask for these days.

 

_ii._

“You’re such a fucking kissass sometimes, Maise.” It’s hard not to yell the words instead of whisper (yell _something_ because fuck dad and his stupid game, it’s not like he ever shuts up when somebody else is watching tv) but this way he doesn’t get up again. “Like, seriously? That’s the goal here? You set all this up to get a pat on the head like a little dog? You never do this when he’s not coming home for dinner.”

Sometimes it’s easier to be pissed off at Maisie than dad, because Maisie’s around to be pissed at. And it’s gross, the way she crawls for his attention like it’s even worth anything.

Maisie shrugs, lips pressed together hard enough Audrey feels like she’s the one who should be ashamed here and she rolls her eyes before shoving her knee against Maisie’s under the table, knocking them together and ignoring the way Maisie sits like a stone until finally she breaks and starts to shove back, just like they’re little kids again.

“It wouldn’t hurt you to try something like that, too.” Scoffing again because that’s actually bullshit, it _would_ , Audrey opens her mouth and slams it shut when this time Maisie jabs her knee into the soft patch in the middle of her thigh. “He likes it and this way I don’t have to fight with him all the time.”

Like you, she doesn’t say, but they both hear it.

Audrey shrugs. “I don’t feel like making his life any easier. All he does is make me feel like shit, so why not return the favor?” Maisie makes a face that she’d kill Audrey for taking a picture of because what if her dumb little squad friends saw, but she doesn’t say anything else and she knocks two of the stacks over with the back of her hand, watching the papers scatter and a few flutter down to the floor before picking up her pencil and getting back to math, knee snug against Audrey’s under the table while dad’s ballgame blares loud enough the sound of mom doing dishes gets drowned out.

 

 

**II. The Talisman**

 

_i._

During the divorce, he gets so fucking drunk he forgets not to call Maggie. She picks up when he calls back the third time, voice so icy it could freeze the line, and he’s drunk enough to pat his face just to see, choking on a wet laugh. “Was it—” He takes another long, fortifying sip and pushes on, ignoring the way she’s all death-quiet on the other end of the phone, no hello or nothing. “The first time, you know? The only time, I mean.”

“You’re drunk, Marty.” She sounds a little strangled and he can’t help thinking about his hands around her throat, all the times he helped her put on those delicate gold chains with pretty stones dangling over slender collarbones and worried he was going to break the damn things and the time he left bruises and drinks again.

“I don’t think—”

“I wanna know if you fucked Rust again. You said he was good, I wanna know if you—” It should be angry (he is angry, fucking so furious it feels like something’s yawning and gaping inside him and filling up with rage) but all he sounds is bewildered and maybe a little young, and that pisses him off too. He can hear the click and rattle of her swallowing, wants to fill the silence with something but slugs down another quarter of the bottle instead, runoff tunneling down his cheeks to stain his shirt. “I have to know, Mags. Please, baby, you have to tell me.”

The silence on the other end stretches so long now he’s not sure she’s still there, and he chokes on another wet sound only this one isn’t even half a laugh. “Baby—”

“It was just the once.” She’s still quiet, but Maggie’s no liar. She fucked his partner and she still never lied, she wouldn’t start now so it’s gotta be true.

It’s good she isn’t, because thinking about Rust touching her’s been fucking with his head. You partner with a guy, you end up getting a good look at each other at least once or twice. He knows exactly what it’d look like and he knows what _they_ look like and thinking maybe it was more than getting rid of him was dragging at his brain just like imagining Rust’s hands on her tits, what she’d look like spread wide around him. “Good, yeah. That’s good.” He can’t help adding it, even knowing it’s no good now: “I love you, Mags.”

Her laugh is loud after all that quiet, sharp and a little eerie. “Good night, Marty.” The click of her hanging up the phone just feels loud, but he falls asleep after and wakes up with a hangover and a dim memory of calling, everything obliterated by the aftermath of getting that shitfaced on cheap liquor.

At least he knows, now. That’s something.

 

_ii._

When Marty calls, it’s stupid to pick up. But habit is habit, and it’s late enough at night (she feels guilty enough over Rust, because the ugly necessity of doing what had to be done doesn’t lessen the guilt of knowing exactly what she would do to them with this; in this case necessary wasn’t the same as just or right, and that’s a bitter pill to swallow) she does it anyway, once the third call in a row provides enough of an excuse; ‘what if there’s an emergency’ doesn’t even work in her own mind, but her finger still hovers over the little button before pressing it gently.

Instinct led her right; it’s clear from the first ragged, moistened breath Marty is the kind of drunk he never lets her see. She knows he gets there, but there’s some level of masculine dignity he feels needs to accompany drinking with her and this lacks that assurance. Then he plunges in the knife and she’s too busy feeling her pulse race to process his actual words, the dizzy rush of fury and shame and horror rushing up to come together in a lump that makes swallowing next to impossible.

He begs her and she wants to vomit, has to cover the mouthpiece so he won’t hear the way her breathing shakes. They used to make love in the bed she’s in, once, when they were young and so beautiful and sure of themselves it makes her laugh now; he covered her whole body with his and cradled her like an egg, nosing his face into her hair and whispering _i love you, baby, i love you so much i want to do this all the time, please mags let’s just stay in bed forever_ even though he was always up first in the mornings, halfway through his shower before she’s even ready to sit up.

The idea of telling him it happened again hovers for a moment; but she’s done playing the kind of games he does, and the truth tumbles out like smooth river stones, well-worn and easily tugged along. When he’s _pleased_ she regrets it, a little, because he still doesn’t see her: he can’t, and it’s clear now he never will. She’s his beautiful wife and the mother of his children; she isn’t Maggie, not to him. The only thing he ever loved was a woman he imagined, and as soon as she thinks that he says the words and she can’t hold in her laugh any more than she could hold back the truth about Rust, from Rust.

_You’re such a child, Marty_ and _I would have done it again_ and _I wish I’d met him, first, wish I’d met anyone on this earth other than you_ are all there to say, but Marty is so far away now the idea of scoring points off the drunk, pathetically grateful man on the line makes her feel sick again.

She hangs up, instead, and in the morning she looks into selling the house.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is kind of part one of a whole deal I'm trying to do, but essentially I wanted to experiment with trying to present in writing my take on the show as far as it concerns coming from Marty's perspective and being purposefully limited by that. Also, it's having a serious issue with this fandom taking over my heart and mind.
> 
> (Also, it's for Sid and Siri because it's equal parts both their faults.)


End file.
